Snakes and Ladders

Zig-Zag, Snakes and Ladders (a didactic fiction about cartography), and also known in French as Le jeu de l'oie (Une fiction didactique à propos de la cartographie), is a French short film made in 1980. It was written and directed by Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz and produced by France 2 to promote a new map exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and was shot in Europe for French television. The film was eventually distributed throughout France and in Spain. It stars Pascal Bonitzer and Jean-Loup Rivière. In the film, Pascal Bonitzer plays a man named "H" who has just awoken in his car in the countryside with no idea of what has happened. Unable to start the car, he decides to look for help and finds two men playing the board game "Snakes and Ladders" and eventually becomes immersed in the game, which becomes (sur)real. He follows the rules and is guided throughout it by a partner who appears from nowhere, played by Jean-Loup Rivière. As he attempts to win the game, H realizes that the scale of the cartography of the board game is ever expanding. Whilst seeking to escape from his didactic nightmare of a real life dream, he travels across Paris, through France and Europe, around the Earth, and eventually to the cosmos. The short film was premiered on September 17, 1980 on French television and was distributed by Gemini Video Editions. Later the film was distributed in Spain for viewers on February 7, 1997. Originally shown in French, it was later subtitled in Spanish, English, and many other languages. Plot "H" (Pascal Bonitzer) wakes up in his car, uninjured and with no signs of an accident. It won’t start, so he walks away. He tells two men playing a board game in a field that his car has broken down and he is late for an appointment; they offer no help. H asks how long they have been playing and the nearest man (Jean-Loup Rivière) replies they have been playing a very long time. Asked if they should roll the dice, the man looks to the sky, carefully arranges the dice, counts the spaces on the board, and tells the other player "You have one hour". The male narrator says, "H realizes he is a victim of a nightmare", as H looks up and sees a hand rolling dice in the sky. The first man tells H where to go, the narrator saying, "H realizes he is the victim of the worst type of nightmare, a didactic nightmare".